FILE - A woman uses her cell phone on Aug. 14, 2022, in Cervo, Lugo, Galicia, Spain. (Photo By Carlos Castro/Europa Press via Getty Images) SEATTLE - If you’ve ever been on a long highway road trip or absorbed in a good book, chances are you’ve entered a state of "dissociation," where you’re transported into another world and have stopped paying attention to things around you — even if only for a bit.
A team of researchers at the University of Washington wondered if this same mental process occurs when people scroll on social media endlessly, and why they may feel out of control after having spent so much time on these apps."I think people experience a lot of shame around social media use," lead author Amanda Baughan, a UW doctoral student in UW’s Paul G.
Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, said in a statement. "Dissociation is defined by being completely absorbed in whatever it is you’re doing," Baughan continued. "But people only realize that they’ve dissociated in hindsight.
So once you exit dissociation there’s sometimes this feeling of: How did I get here? It’s like when people on social media realize: ‘Oh my gosh, how did 30 minutes go by?